PROMOTION TO COMMAND OF THE GUIDES. 129 



curved thin nostrils added a look of defiance in no 

 ways counteracted by the compressed lips, which 

 seemed to denote many an inward struggle between 

 duty and inclination. 



"These are my impressions of your brother as I 

 last saw him, and if you add to this an open frank 

 manner that, bon gre mal gre, impressed you favour- 

 ably at first sight with the owner, you will have the 

 charming ensemble that presides over my recollec- 

 tions of three as happy weeks as I ever passed."^ 



On the 5th of January 1852 Lieutenant William 

 Hodson was married at the cathedral in Calcutta to 

 Susan, daughter of Captain C. Henry, R.N., and 

 widow of John Mitford, Esq. of Exbury, Hants. 

 They had met for the first time in Guernsey. " She 

 is wonderfully little altered," writes Hodson, " since 

 I saw her in 1844, and being in better health, she 

 looks younger. Sir Lawrence Peel has placed a 

 house at our disposal here, and we are very 

 comfortable indeed and supremely happy." 



"In the cold weather of 1851-52," writes Mr 

 Seton-Karr, " I was surprised one morning to receive 

 a letter from Hodson saying that he was on his way 

 to Calcutta to receive Mrs Mitford, the lady whom 

 he was engaged to marry. I was then Under Secre- 

 tary in Lord Dalhousie's Government, and received 

 Hodson in my house in Camac Street. He brought 

 with him as attendant a faithful Afghan, who, he 

 assured me, had been with Eldred Pottinger and had 

 seen thousands of Persians and, as he averred, 

 Russians to boot, hurled back from the walls of 

 Herat in 1838. 



" Hodson's marriage was quite private. No one 



1 MS. letter to Miss Hodsor. 

 I 



